


stay with me

by feelingsmall79



Category: Bandom, Marianas Trench
Genre: End of Relationship, Last Night Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2189214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelingsmall79/pseuds/feelingsmall79
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re checked into a seedy hotel on the outskirts of the city where they’ve found refuge since five months worth of unpaid rent piled up, and somehow in the darkness of that musty room it suddenly dawns on both of them that this is the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stay with me

They’re checked into a seedy hotel on the outskirts of the city where they’ve found refuge since five months worth of unpaid rent piled up, and somehow in the darkness of that musty room it suddenly dawns on both of them that this is the end.  
There is no defining factor to point to as the breaking point, the end-all of this whatever-it-is that has been their state of being for the past four years. But suddenly every breath tastes bitter and Matt is swallowing down the bile of an indefinite amount of time without Josh.  
It’s been too long, too much of this. There have been too many fights and too many slammed doors and too many texts promising that they will never speak again. Every other week is a competition to see who can ignore the other longer and whose words can break the other in a more permanent way. They are slamming their fists against the wall and then slamming each other against the wall just to kiss away all their breath.  
It is out of control and Matt is so tired but he does not want this to be the end.

Here is the scene as the closing curtain comes barreling down on them:  
They lie on the hard mattress, not touching. Rough sheets tangle with their bare skin and boxers, but they will not touch. The room is aching with strips of streetlights and all the many things they have chosen to say or not say over the past 48 months. But it cannot be over, no matter how much the air refuses to calm his rending heart, it cannot end now, and Matt must speak. He feels so small, as he lies with his arms by his sides and so much empty mattress between them. He feels so small. But he has to say something.

“Josh.” The word, the caress, the curse, it barely chokes out. He can barely manage this one syllable without losing everything he holds inside.  
“What?” responds the other man from a million miles away, and this is the stamp on the death certificate, the first sprinkle of dirt on the lid of a four-year-old coffin. It is Josh’s voice – but it is not Matt’s voice. It is not the promise of forever and the anger of hatred so strong it can only be compared to love that Josh has always gifted to Matt.  
It is empty, and Matt hates it.  
Matt knows that there are words to fill these spaces, strung together sentences and heartbroken pleas that could create some sort of substance out of this situation. He knows that the right person could fix this, and he knows that part of the problem is that he never seems to be the right person. But he can feel the curtains being slowly drawn and there is no time to become the right person. This is what he can give Josh, and this is what Josh will lose. This is it, there are only a handful of moments left, and he will fight for every second of it. Because he may never be the right person, but Josh will never have the right to say that Matt didn’t fight it.  
But when Matt stutters out the words, it is not so much a fight as a dying plea. The words are filled with blood and choking breath and 48 months’ worth of dying and there is no vigor. No conviction. He is defeated and he knows it and there is no changing the way that the walls of this hotel room taste. “Why…”  
The rest of his half-hearted sentence is lost. It is pointless anyway, and Matt is so tired. He can’t speak, can only let the hot tears free from where they’ve been waiting since much earlier in the night.  
What might hurt the most is that there is no sign of emotion from the other side of the bed. Matt is staring fixedly at the dark ceiling and hating every single inch of this cursed hotel room, but he is also watching Josh. He is always watching Josh. He has spent 208 weeks learning to see Josh even when everything around them is black and now is no exception. He can feel the shape of Josh’s indifference, can taste it mixing with the stale air of the hotel. He is not surprised when Josh speaks and the words are nothing. They are flavorless and it makes him want to puke.  
“What, Matt?”

Josh does not want to do this.  
He has known for a while now that this was coming, and he’s sure that Matt must have felt it too. He knows that they are both so tired. So sick of the fights and so sick in love and so tired. He knows that it has to end, and he knows that Matt can feel it just as he can.  
But whoever said that knowing is not the same as accepting was right on the money, because it feels as though every single thing in this world has become an aching dagger to be stabbed repeatedly into Josh’s stomach and throat and forehead and his chest, god, his chest, that fucking broken place. He is being broken by reality because reality is the place in which he must break Matt.  
But of course, Josh will never be known for his skills at dealing with situations like this. There’s been more fights than he can count that have stemmed from his inability to face these moments with his emotions still connected. He will not let himself feel these wounds and he knows that this, more than anything, will gut Matt. But he cannot help it.   
So he shuts down, and stares at the ceiling of the stupid hotel room and wonders how many pairs of human beings have laid in this exact position before, avoiding endings and breathing in the smell of loneliness under cold sheets. He wonders, and he refuses to hear the soft tears beside him. He will not allow himself to be close enough for that now, because it is already too late.   
“Do you really – do you really think this is how it’s supposed to go?” Matt’s voice is not breaking. That would be too optimistic of a description, because it would imply that there was still some hope left at the beginning of this night. It is not breaking because it has already been broken, and Josh will not feel he will not feel he will not – 

“Yes.”  
Josh knows that this is a lie and a truth at the same time and the only thing he is sure of is that he has no fucking idea whether this is how it is ‘supposed to go.’ But regardless of fate or purpose, he knows that they have no choice. They have already lost.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Matt can hear the desperation in his own voice, and he can feel it spreading poisonous through his veins. It is the panicked thought that Josh will really do it, which of course Matt is already anticipating. But as his voice cracks and his eyes are wet, the inside parts of him suddenly seem to realize that this is it. He has suddenly drawn even with reality and now there is no way to breathe because this is really and truly it, and Matt can hardly speak but he has to know. He has to know that Josh is cracking open too. He is not in control anymore, if he ever was, and he is turning onto his side to face Josh’s profile in the dark. His body is shaking and now his tears are wetting the sheets so they stick to his skin and rough blankets are clenched so tightly in his hand that he feels like his knuckles might break and he is staring at Josh because he needs to hear that Josh is feeling this too.  
But of course the word that drops cold from Josh’s lips is exactly what Matt dreaded and what he knew would emerge. There is no other way for this conversation, if you can call it that, to go, besides Josh saying, emotionless: “No.”  
Matt is crying in earnest now, and beyond that he is angry. He wants to rip the fucking world apart because how the fuck is it fair that he is losing the lining to his ribcage and spitting up mouthfuls of blood as his heart collapses and his ribs shatter and he slowly crumbles inwards, while Josh is saying ‘no’ in that voice that tastes like freshly poured cement. “You’re telling me – you’re saying that you don’t feel, that you aren’t feeling a single fucking – “ His words are choked and he knows that the only proper way to describe him right now is pathetic, but Matt doesn’t care. He needs something from Josh. Anything.  
And he gets it.

Josh can’t take it anymore. He cannot. He is failing himself, because whatever part of him it is that allows his emotions to be unplugged has now gone yellow bellied and hooked him back up. His emotions are wired in again, and the sound of Matt’s choking is like a bucket of water poured over frayed wires – pain is crackling across the separate parts of his brain and his body, and he is washed over with electricity as he feels himself snap in two, or maybe shatter into pieces.  
“Fuck, Matt! How is this helping?” He is yelling, and he doesn’t want to yell because yelling shows that he cares. Yelling tells Matt that he isn’t in control. Yelling is echoing the screaming that he is doing inside, and it’s horrible. Josh throws the sheets back, desperate to put space between himself and those heavy eyes that he can feel desperately begging him to say something close to the truth. He sits on the edge of the bed, elbows propped on knees and head resting in hands. It’s a picture of defeat, and he feels it’s fitting for the current wreckage that surrounds them.  
When Josh speaks again, it’s quieter. Now that his emotions are plugged back in, there’s no controlling the current. But he can at least maintain his outward composure. He’s a fucking song and dance man, after all. Lying with his smiles is what he does best. So he speaks quietly, but somehow this only seems to double the heartbreak that is laced with his words. “What, you want me to just, just fucking break down to you? What do you want, Matt? Do you want me to fucking cry and scream or whatever and tell you that I can’t fucking stand walking away from you? Because I can’t. I can’t fucking stand it. I feel like I’m going to puke. I feel like – “  
And this is when Josh truly loses his composure. Never, in 1,456 days, has he cried during a conversation with Matt. But there is a first time for everything, of course, and his throat is closed and he is choking on air and his voice is cracking and there are tears, there are truly tears on his face, and he runs a rough palm across his eyes just to check – but no, they’re real. Josh fists his fingers in his bangs and squeezes his eyes shut and tries to disappear.

Matt is slowly becoming aware of the magnitude of what is happening – not just for them, but for Josh personally. He knows Josh better than his own family, but this sound, this brittle voice and struggling breath, it is unfamiliar. He’s never heard Josh cry, and only now does he realize that there is something more devastating than Josh’s indifference, and it is Josh caring this much. In this moment of desperation, Matt has a fleeting thought: I would give him up if it meant that he’d never cry like this again.   
But unfortunately the world does not go out for deals like that, and nothing about their situation has changed. Matt doesn’t know what to say, other than to continue asking for an explanation he doesn’t truly need. He knows well enough why it has to happen. But if he keeps talking, Josh won’t leave. If he keeps asking, maybe Josh will realize that being tired isn’t a reason to tear Matt’s lungs out. “I just – please. I need you to explain it to me. I don’t know how to make it without even an explanation. I’m just – I feel like I might die.” The words are unplanned, but it’s the truth. Everything is so immediate and painful – Matt’s entire body is aching and truly, he feels as though he might really die.  
“Matt –“ Josh mumbles out, and the fractures in his voice make Matt hate himself, because there is no doubt that he caused them. “Matt, please don’t say…you’ll be fine. It’s just – fuck. Fuck this. I hate this. I hate this so fucking much. But do you really want to keep doing this? I mean, we go back and forth between hating each other and relying on each other like oxygen every other hour. Aren’t you – aren’t you just tired?”  
The silence that stretches from this question is the longest yet. Because of course they both know the answer – Matt has been tired since the day he walked in on burnt tinfoil and heroine smoke. They’ve been in this together since day one, and there is no unwinding their inextricable exhaustion from each other’s throats. But Matt’s vocal chords refuse to do him the sabotage of speaking the words they both know they will hear. He does not yet have the will to set fire to 34,944 hours worth of torture and ecstasy. Not just yet.  
He struggles to find some coherent way to explain it to Josh. To explain how Josh’s name is painted on the inside of Matt’s eye lids, to explain how sometimes Matt goes home and punches holes in the dry wall because Josh won’t even look at him, but the next day when Josh kisses his swollen purple knuckles, Matt feels like he’s been brought back home. He has to explain to Josh that sometimes there are days when Matt can’t even stand to think about him, but there is never a moment that passes when Matt does not think of the color of Josh’s eyes. Matt needs to tell him. He needs Josh to know that he is the reason that Matt is broken, but he is the only way Matt will ever put himself back together.  
Finally Matt surrenders to words that are insufficient to describe it. And somehow, as he speaks, he seems to find his own thesis. As the words pour out he is discovering their meaning, and the tears have stopped for just a moment because Matt finally knows the exact way in which he needs the man sitting across from him.  
“I am tired, Josh. And I mean…yeah, sometimes I hate you so much I just want to fucking punch you in the face. But then other times I think about you and it’s like I can’t breathe, Josh. It’s like I can’t breathe because I just love you so fucking much. You – you’re everything. You are every single good thing to me and I hate it so much. I hate the world for hurting you and I hate you for hurting you and I love you so much it feels like it might break me and – fuck, Josh, it might have already – but that doesn’t mean I ever want to stop.”  
He is breathing so hard now, and it feels like he is being strangled by his need to make Josh stay. There is something so desperate about the darkness now, as he struggles to bring Josh back from wherever he has already begun to go.  
“Sometimes I think – sometimes I think that I won’t ever stop being tired. But that doesn’t mean I ever want to stop loving you.”

And for once, Josh doesn’t know what to say.  
He has no idea how it’s come to this, how they have come to love each other so fully and so destructively. How did the stars get so muddled for them – or did those lights even shine when they were together? Josh doesn’t know. He’s been too busy avoiding Matt’s eyes to stop and look up and find their direction.   
“I’m sorry.” Josh hates those three syllables because he knows down to his core how inadequate they are, how little they do to rectify the collapse that is happening in Matt’s chest just as surely as it is happening in Josh’s. But – what else is there to say? “I’m just afraid…I’m afraid we might kill each other. We can’t keep this up, Matty.”  
Josh knows that the use of a pet name at a moment like this is one of the cruelest things he has done in the 2,096,640 minutes they have spent together. He hears the crooked catch in Matt’s breathing and he feels the pain from the other side of the bed like poisonous radiation. But he doesn’t know how to stop it. He doesn’t know how to make it better, and underneath the immediacy of this moment, he is finding out that there is no way to make it better. This is the end.

“Josh…please.”  
Matt is sitting up now, his knees pulled up to his chest and his hands trying to push together his temples until the space between them no longer exists. It hurts, so much. It is like he is being bathed in acid, and he hates this hotel room so much. He thinks maybe the only thing to do is to burn it down, burn it all down, maybe with both of them inside, because wouldn’t that be a poetic way for this whole thing to end –   
He doesn’t want it to end. God, he doesn’t want this to end.  
But Josh is going on recklessly, barreling toward the inevitable separation, and though Matt knows that Josh will lose everything too, it doesn’t feel like it. It feels as though they are in a headfirst dive off a thousand foot cliff and Josh is the one dragging him along.

This is it.   
It’s time to rip off the bandage, slice through these ribbons, welcome on the dawn of no tomorrow. Josh slowly draws his legs up onto the bed, turning his body so that he is facing Matt. They are mirrored now, both with legs curled to chests and stomachs held together by an arm wrapped around their torso, the other hand tugging their hair and fighting to hold back the screams.  
Josh has lost his will to be anything. To be alive. After Matt there can be nothing, and there will be nothing. This is it for him. When he speaks, the words come out exhausted and disjointed and confused, because he can’t do it anymore. He cannot exist properly anymore. It is over.  
“I’m so sorry, Matt. I thought – I don’t know what I thought. But this isn’t right, there’s something wrong with us. I want – I want you to be happy. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I don’t want you to be hurt. You are perfect to me – god, you’re fucking perfect. But we can’t – I’m too tired. I can’t watch you be hurt anymore.”  
And out of all the things he could have said, this is the one thing that can get through to Matt. I can’t watch you be hurt anymore. He understands this to the very fiber of his being, and suddenly in a rush of blood and snapping bones and ragged inhaling he finally accepts it. But when Josh looks away, when he pulls himself to his feet and begins to shuffle around the bed, when he begins to leave, Matt knows that 125,798,400 seconds cannot culminate in this.  
He just needs one more night.  
“Josh, don’t. Just – stay with me.”  
Josh stops and turns slightly to look at Matt. They make eye contact for the first time in the night, and Matt is raked across miles of razors by the thought that he can now count the number of hours he has left to see those eyes. But there is sudden understanding in those eyes, and this is why they’ve lasted so long. Because Josh knows what Matt needs to let go. Just one more night.  
“Please.”

Four years comes to an end when Matt wakes up the next morning before dawn to find the sheets empty next to him. Josh’s few clothes are gone from the corner of the room that he had been using as a closet, and the walls hold a hollowness that is indescribable but unavoidably recognizable.  
Matt looks around the hotel room, still swaddled in scratchy sheets as the sky begins to grow light outside the thin curtains. He wonders how many other unlucky strangers have woken in exactly the same way on this bed. Under these sheets. Looking around at these same dingy walls. He wonders how many one-night stands and broken lovers have found loneliness waiting in these hotel walls.  
He stands. Goes to shower. Closes his eyes under the spray and cries.   
This is it. It is over.

**Author's Note:**

> Partially inspired by and written while listening to Stay With Me by Sam Smith and Say Something by A Great Big World feat. Christina Aguilera. These songs are stuck in my head all the time because they play so often on the radio and I've grown rather fond of them and I was sad so I wanted to write something to Stay With Me and then Say Something got added it and here ya go I hope it wasn't too terrible
> 
> also  
> this is my first piece to be published on AO3 so thank you for reading! I will be posting more soon, some of which has already been posted on wattpad. My wattpad is here: http://www.wattpad.com/user/bethejaime_tomyvic  
> but I will also be reposting everything i have on there to this account. anyway. thank you for reading y'all


End file.
